Funny / Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle

Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle has the Mario characters team up with their Rabbid counterparts to fight a bunch of other Rabbids. The jokes practically write themselves.

Unmarked spoilers ahead!

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E3 Trailer:

• Mario's first contact with Rabbid Peach has her splat on the ground like a Saturday morning cartoon character. She turns and swings her hair teasingly to Mario, complete with romantic music as she struts over, only...
• Rabbid Luigi is introduced falling face-first to the ground between Mario and Rabbid Peach, screaming the Rabbid scream all the way to impact. Rabbid Peach is not amused, complete with thumbs-down animation. Keep in mind the trailer is just half a minute in from these two moments alone.
• Mario rolling onto his back to launch Rabbid Peach over a wall the enemy Rabbids are hiding behind is not that funny. Rabbid Peach nonchalantly shooting her target is also not that funny. Rabbid Peach snapping several selfies mid-flight before nonchalantly shooting her target is likely to slay you from sheer absurdity.
• Mario and his two Rabbids find the real Peach pinned by two hostile Rabbids, and Mario proceeds to be Mario. Peach sees this, then sees her Rabbid counterpart, and decides she's had enough before shooting her aggressors off of her.
  • Near the end, the gang all bring out their weapons...except Rabbid Luigi, who brings out a banana. Cue Rabbid Kong.
  • Mario meets Rabbid Mario, who literally proceeds to strut while grunting the Mario theme. Mario chuckles approvingly.

Main Story:

• How does the disaster all start? The Rabbids still have their "Time Washing Machine" from the Travel in Time spinoffs (which is Exactly What It Says on the Tin and looks exactly like you'd expect it to look like; a washing machine with what looks like parts of the DeLorean time machine stuck on it) and end up in an inventor's basement who's a huge fan of the Mario series. The Rabbids get out and begin goofing off with the assorted merchandise until, well, you can guess where this is going, right? Yep, things go to chaos when one plays with the inventor's latest creation; a merging device called the Supa-Merge, which they shoot at various Rabbids and merge them with whatever they were playing with, but a stray shot at the Time Washing Machine causes it to malfunction and travels to the Mario universe with all the Rabbids inside it.
• The very first thing catching Beep-0's attention as he falls out of the sky? Him sprouting rabbit ears.
• One of the things that falls past Beep-0 when he first arrives at the Mushroom Kingdom is a bored-looking Rabbid who is sitting on a toilet and holding a newspaper.
  • Another is Rabbid Mario frozen in a block of ice.
    • A third is three Rabbids, each riding a paintbrush, one of whom nearly knocks poor Spawny out, followed by a falling ice-cream and an on fire and exploding washing machine.
• Rabbid Peach has a tendency to constantly take selfies, even while she's in danger.
  • And keeping up with the theme, Rabbid Peach has her own Instagram account (or rather took over the official Rabbids account). It's pretty much as stereotypical as you'd think.
• While Pirabbid Plant is slamming her around with its vines, Rabbid Peach pauses her freakout to take a selfie. The best part? The Pirabbid Plant pauses its thrashing of her to pose for the selfie.
• Rabbid Kong's attack when a hero Rabbid gets too close to him in his boss fight is to grab the character, shake them a bit, and scratch his ass with them before throwing them to the ground. (With a Mario character, he simply roars before slamming them on the ground.) It's even better if you can get Rabbid Kong to use the attack on his own allies.
• After defeating the first boss and causing Rabbid Kong to fall off the tower, Rabbid Peach decides to take several selfies with her and the falling boss. During one of the said selfies, Rabbid Kong inexplicably appears right next to Rabbid Peach and smiles right before continuing his fall.
  • Afterwards, Rabbid Peach and Rabbid Luigi are looking at the phone and laughing at the photos. Luigi tries to get a look too, but the Rabbids won't let him. For the rest of the scene, Luigi can be seen repeatedly sliding up behind the Rabbids and ducking away before they notice him.
  • And then there's the reason Kong's falling in the first place. When you beat the battle, he climbs up this tower of blocks, including a very slender stick. As the group runs up, Rabbid Peach starts poking at it. Mario tries to get her to stop, but Rabbid Luigi laughs, and with an absolutely enormous shit-eating grin, she pushes it out from the stack.
• Due to the vast majority of the foreign objects being commonly found household objects supersized, it's possible to find some pretty weird scenery, especially in the Sherbet Desert where a Banzai Bill has underwear over its head and it's clearly uncomfortable as a result.
• At the beginning of 2-3, Bowser Jr. attacks Mario & his team and gloats about how, when he makes his army, no one is going to be the boss of him. Cue a phone call from Bowser and Junior reassuring his father that he did all his chores. And he has to keep pausing to stop Spawny from grabbing at his phone.
• After the mini-boss fight in 2-5, Rabbid Mario (who is frozen in a block of ice with only his tongue sticking out) manages to knock himself out of the gate with only his tongue.
• After Spawny falls out of the Clown Car in World 2-8, Junior warns Mario to stay away from him, adding: "I have things to do and daddy issues to repress!"
• Upon defeating the boss of World 2, the Icicle Golem, the Rabbid who helped in the fight takes its head and places it on the ground so that Peach can run up to it and kick it like a football back into the massive freezer from whence it came. She manages to kick it so hard, it almost knocks the massive, house-sized freezer to the ground.
• If Rabbid Peach is the Rabbid chosen to help fight the Icicle Golem, there is an extended scene before the fight where she is very dismissive of Peach after she arrives to have Mario and his team. Mario facepalming also deserves an honorable mention.
• Much of World 3 consists of Mario & his team being lead to find the "Relics of Goodness" by a mysterious messenger who claims they are the key to waking a friendly spirit known as Tom Phan. Except it is very obvious Bowser Jr. tricking the party into a trap. And in-spite of the times when he has to correct himself (in an email, no less) or happily mentions the dangers they'll be facing, the heroes still fall for it.
• Beep-0's brief bouts of Symbol Swearing throughout World 3. Special mention goes to his frustration when getting the relics doesn't automatically open the door, with the rest of the party starting at the little robot in shock he begins screaming.
  Beep-0: *&#$%@! WHY ISN'T IT OPEN?! IT'S NOT FAIR! WHY ISN'T IT...
• The introduction of the Valkyries in World 3. They shoot a heart around the team... and then it's revealed that their gatling guns come from their chests.
• Beep-0 trying to convince Toad and Toadette to go do something indoors so they don't get lost again. They decide they should, after exploring some more. Mario's facepalm says it all.
• Before Spawny combines the Gramophone, Boo Balloon and a Rabbid into the Phantom, the Rabbid can be seen excitedly pulling on the tongue of the balloon.
• The boss of World 3, Phantom, is an opera-singing Rabbid who sings a song dissing Mario between each phase.
  • Building on this is Mario's reaction when he realizes that the song is about him, while the Rabbids laugh hysterically at him.
• Near the end of the game, Bowser Jr. learns that his dad is on his way home early. In his panic, he accidentally tosses his cellphone into some nearby lava and incinerates it.
• Being frozen freezes just your head in a perfect cube of ice. Not only does it look ridiculous, but it adds a perfect explanation for how you can be burned and frozen at the same time.
• To get the Moon Gate open in World 3, it needs to be a full moon. How do they make it happen? Simple, they turn the hands on the clock tower backwards so that the moon rises back up into the sky. This line exemplifies this moment:
  Beep-0: Sounds like the type of nonsensical Rabbidese logic the Mushroom Kingdom is overrun with...
• The introduction to the Hopper enemies. After a brief display of their new abilities and a title card ("Team Jumping Jerks"), one of them actually falls over the edge of the battlefield, forcing the other two to rescue him.
• Shielded enemies can't be hit from the front. Obviously, that's not the funny part. What is? If you flank them to a point where they can get hit and aim, they raise their hands in surrender.
• The introduction of the Lava Queen: flirting with Mario.
• The last regular challenge, "Battle Royal", requires you to defeat 30 enemies, which includes many of the game's tougher enemies and all of the mid bosses but Bowser Jr. Who's the very last opponent? A Garden Ziggy.
• Losing gives us some funny moments to alleviate some of the frustration, particularly from the Rabbids, which ranges from straight up collapsing for Rabbid Yoshi, choking on a toothpick from Rabbid Mario, and a straight-up Rage Quit from Rabbid Peach, who even tosses her wig towards the group.
• In the descriptions of the characters, Peach is described as "a defender in a dress" rather than "a damsel in distress". Also, she's armed with an extremely powerful and extremely deadly shotgun. This is the kind, pretty Princess who usually ends up captured, but apparently Peach has had enough of being kidnapped for the time being.
• For once, Bowser has nothing to do with what's going on. He's gone on holiday and Bowser Jr. has gone a little power-hungry but he, himself, only gets involved when he's possessed by the power machine in the sky.
• The revelation that FB is Future Beep-0 can be funny when you realize that Bowser Jr. somehow managed to hack the email of someone from the future.
• One of Rabbid Luigi's shrieks when he fires at the enemy sounds like "Die!", which is absolutely hilarious given that he's a mutant rabbit shooting a Rabbid.

Donkey Kong Adventure:

• This DLC has you play as Donkey Kong, Rabbid Peach and a Rabbid version of... Cranky Kong. The gameplay trailer even shows him whacking Beep-0 with his cane.
  • Forget whacking with his cane: during the exploration phases, he rides poor Beep-0 like an electric unicycle!
• The reason why Rabbid Peach is part of the DK Crew in the DLC: while the washing machine was malfunctioning (again), she absentmindedly tried to use it charge her smartphone. As for why she has a new gun? She forgot it in the Mushroom Kingdom because she was using it as a makeshift campfire for some food.
• After Donkey Kong meets Rabbid Peach, Rabbid Cranky's introduction has him walk onto the screen. Very, very slowly. And then once he finally is entirely onscreen, he immediately eschews his alleged old man stamina by doing a dramatic jump pose for his splash screen.
• Rabbid Kong survived his fall. He also gained some strength thanks to some contaminated bananas. Which causes him to just punch Rabbid Peach into the sand. When he leaves, she angrily just pops out of the ground. Like a daisy!
• Our introduction to Side-Eye shows him as a cruel and greedy warlord who taunts his minions with food before taking it away. But when he realizes he has to actually fight, he immediately runs and hides. His intro splash screen even shows him hiding behind a cover block!
• When you open a chest in a bonus room, Rabbid Peach will steal Rabbid Cranky's cane and use it as a selfie stick. Rabbid Cranky will start yelling at her, only to suddenly lean in and pose for the picture at the last second.
• After getting both of the keys to the big gate and returning to said gate, Donkey Kong and Rabbid Cranky start to unlock it. All well and good, except Rabbid Cranky's lock is upside down. After a few seconds of watching him fail to put in the key, Donkey Kong simply lifts Rabbid Cranky and holds him upside down, which lets him successfully unlock his side of the door.
• Rabbid Kong ends up developing a crush on Rabbid Peach after watching her for long enough. When the heroes reach Rabbid Kong's lair, he attempts to seduce Rabbid Peach... on method involving him twerking. Yes, you read that right.
• After falling into the dungeon, Beep-0 starts blindly panicking, claiming that he has already forgotten what the surface world looks like. When he notices that Rabbid Peach is calmly moonbathing, he's annoyed that she isn't also blindly panicking, so points out that there's no Wi-Fi. She checks her phone and freaks out, running offscreen while Rabbid Cranky laughs at her... at which point Beep-0 complains there's no time to panic. She then slowly walks back onscreen while crying, and faceplants.
• If you get a Game Over, Cranky Rabbid starts reprimanding Donkey Kong, who then punches him to somewhere off-screen which he and Rabbid Peach laugh over.
• On Rabbid Cranky's Team Info page, Rabbid Peach pokes him on the shoulder from offscreen, causing him glance over in that direction and grumble angrily to himself as he turns back. Immediately afterward, Rabbid Peach sticks her phone behind Rabbid Cranky and takes a flash photograph of him, and he immediately turns around and scolds her for bothering him.
• What is one of Donkey Kong's Weapons? A phone in the shape of a banana. Yes, folk, it's a Banana-phone meme!

Meta/Fandom:

• A Youtuber who already had the screenname of Rabbid Luigi had a field day with the game's reveal, with him, his colleagues, gaming news websites/publications, and even Nintendo and Ubisoft making jokes about it for months. He regales much of the chaos that resulted from this case of shared names in both his review of the game (called "The Greatest Game of All Time") and another video years later called "rabbidluigi vs Rabbid Luigi".
  I've been playing the copy [of the game] that Ubisoft sent me, along with the merchandise of... myself.
• Kingdom Battle is often compared to XCOM, which is made funnier by the game releasing the exact same day as XCOM 2's expansion, "War of the Chosen", which was even announced at the same E3!
  • Speaking of which, when asked about this game, XCOM 2 Creative Director Jake Solomon claimed that watching that presentation and hearing the sentence "As you see, Luigi has taken half-cover," was one of the most jaw-dropping moments of his career.
• Word of God reveals that the rule that Ubisoft gave the developers was that the Rabbids weren't allowed to talk. However, they never said they couldn't sing, and thus, Phantom was born. Overlaps with Awesome Moments as this is what convinced Ubisoft to allow the Rabbids to speak in Sparks of Hope.
  • It's also been stated that they made one rule for the next game: they never want to hear the Rabbids scream again.

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